Any personal computer is a complex electronic device consisting of component parts. All of them together form hardware . Drawing an analogy with living things, hardware is a physical body. To control it, the presence of something intangible is necessary: soul, mind, spark - in this case, this is not fundamental. In computer technology, such an intangible component is system and application software (software, software). Without programs, the computer appears to be an unnecessary pile of electronic components. All of the above is true for laptops, netbooks, many mobile devices, etc.
Software is all those programs that run on the hardware configuration used. They are divided into several conditional types that determine the purpose and functionality.
System software is the foundation. It to a large extent determines how to implement the work of any launched programs. It can be represented as a combination of interacting programs, the main task of which is to manage the hardware of a computer (processor, multimedia adapters, RAM). Often, the term "PC system software" refers to the operating system (OS), although this is only partially true. System support, in fact, acts as a kind of “layer” between the hardware of the computer and the application user programs. In modern systems, no running application can directly interact with components, in contrast to the days of DOS, when such an approach was predominant. Now the application is required to comply with certain rules and be written using clearly defined programming tools designed for the operating system used. That is why Windows programs cannot work in Linux (and vice versa), although in both cases these operating systems properly manage the hardware components and provide a convenient graphical interface for interacting with the user. System software interprets and implements control commands for any hardware component coming from applications. In addition, modern computer operating systems are interactive, allowing the user to partially adjust their work.
System software is not the only type of program. There is also application software. User programs just define the application environment. For example, to work with graphics they use the environment of a graphic editor, for text documents - the corresponding editor, for a game - an application game environment, etc. A certain application software does not have to solve only a strictly limited range of tasks: there are cases when it is permissible to run various specialized small applications through the program interface . Often, application programs are called “applications”, which very precisely defines their essence, because the basis for them is system software that ensures the operability of applications.
An amazing fact: launching any application program, the user, in fact, begins the process of interaction with the hardware components of the computer. For example, by enabling playback of a composition in an audio player, the user instructs the system and application software to output the sound through the sound card.